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Dig This! Curumin

FREE MP3 DOWNLOAD: Curumin, "Compacto"

Curumin is the Quannum artist who shouldn't be. On a Bay Area label of underground rappers, the young man born Luciano Nakata Albuquerque is a Brazilian multi-instrumentalist who doesn't rap and is, in many ways, an old-fashioned songwriter. But when Quannum co-founders Blackalicious toured Brazil in 2004, Curumin's manager slipped his first album, Achados e Perdidos, into their hands, and the group listened. What they heard seriously impressed them: a young man who had Stevie Wonder on the brain, James Brown in the beats and Jorge Ben in the melodies. Shortly after, they signed him.

Two things drive Curumin: a powerful nostalgia for the simplicity of childhood and a voracious appetite for new sounds. JapanPopShow, his second album, is a vintage-era masterpiece. But, for all its diverse influences -- Brazilian pop, soul, funk and reggae  -- it's also a complete musical universe. There are no loose threads. And given how beautifully textured the album is, perhaps it's not surprising he's a Quannum artist -- any hip-hop producer would want to sample these songs. (In fact, several rappers guest on the album.) We caught up with Rhapsody's Dig This! artist in early November, and asked him about all the usual stuff -- the album's name, his inspirations -- but we got a lot more: meditations on youth, our modern world, and what tradition means in the age of globalization.

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]

SoundTreks: Remembering Miriam Makeba (1932-2008)

Miriam Makeba led quite a life: she was the first African woman to win a Grammy. She performed before great political figures of her time, including John F. Kennedy and Nelson Mandela. When she gave an impassioned speech against apartheid before the United Nations in 1963, the South African government responded by banning her records -- and keeping her in exile from her home country for 31 long years.

Makeba never wanted to be at the center of the world's cultural storms; she simply wanted to sing. But what she chose to sing defined her life and career. She sang traditional songs from her Swazi and Xhosa backgrounds; she sang jazz and township music; she sang of joy and of struggle. Her own and her people's.

Soundtreks: Calle 13, Buena Vista Social Club, Bollywood

SoundTreks: A regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to.

Buena Vista Social Club returned from the dead (almost literally) last week, and this week Puerto Rican rappers/provocateurs Calle 13 took on the living, breathing lyrical fire. (Colombian rock outfit Aterciopelados wasn't far behind on that front either.) Plus, a sneak preview of songs from a hotly anticipated Bollywood flick, and Los Lobos guitarist David Hidalgo goes folkloric ... again?

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this edition of SoundTreks.]

SoundTreks: Curumin, Juana Molina & more

SoundTreks: a regular feature on the music the other 97 percent of the globe is listening to.

Wow -- what a great week for world music. The globalized economy may be crawling into a McMansion-sized hole right now, but you've gotta admit, while globalization may suck for mortgage-backed securities, it's been damn good for music. It's like an all-you-can-eat international buffet this week, only the portions are small and all the food is cooked by those grumpy French slow-food guys who burn down fast food joints while wearing hats set at a jaunty angle. On the menu: indie-pop from Argentina's ardently odd songstress Juana Molina, Ethiopian dub reggae (yes, you read that right) from Dub Colossus, psychedelic '60s Amazonian surf-pop from Juaneco y Su Combo, and a Brazilian who's obsessed with Japan and duets with West Coast underground rappers. Viva cross-pollination!

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this edition of SoundTreks.]

Q&A: Plastilina Mosh

by Sarah Bardeen

Despite their sporadic releases and refusal to cleave to one genre, Plastilina Mosh has become known as a major influence on the Latin alternative scene. In the 1990s, they were part of the first wave of rock bands to emerge from Monterrey, Mexico, an industrial city some critics have dubbed the Seattle of Mexico. They innovatively fused rock, hip-hop and electronica in ways that are still influencing newer bands like Kinky. Their standing was only cemented when they recently signed with Nacional Records, home to alternative heroes like Manu Chao and Nortec Collective. We caught up with lead singer Jonaz Gonzalez a week after All U Need Is Mosh dropped. He waxed eloquent on video games (loves them), his favorite bands (many), and who would win a fight to the death -- Plastilina Mosh or new Latin alt sensation Ximena Sariñana, who sings on their new release (guess who wins).

Nomadic Wax: Shrinking the Global Hip-Hop Scene

by Sarah Bardeen

Hip-hop has become a global phenomenon, but the popularity of U.S. superstars such as Nas and 50 Cent tends to drown out the flows of lesser-known artists from countries like Senegal and France. Nomadic Wax, a small New York-based label, is trying to rectify this, giving emcees from around the globe a platform to start making waves of their own, while giving the rest of us a chance to listen in.

Live: Jay-Z at Glastonbury

by Sarah Bardeen

This past weekend, thousands of Brits (and citizens of various other kingdoms, fiefdoms and republics, for sure) gathered at the Vale of Avalon to watch some of their favorite artists pull musical swords from the stone at the annual Glastonbury Festival. Typically, the main talking point before, during and after the festival is the weather, as past Glastos have left audiences to fend for themselves against torrential rains and ensuing fields of mud. But this year, organizers of England's premiere summer music festival booked Jay-Z to headline Saturday night, and the choice set off a different kind of storm: one of debate, disses and drama.

Video: Orishas, "Bruja"

by Sarah Bardeen

Orishas fanaticos -- check out the cubano hotties in a some-discretion-advised video for "Bruja" from the band's upcoming release Cosita Buena. It sounds pretty cool, but who could pay attention to the music with all this fantastically trashy action. It's modeled on the cult classic Faster Pussycat Kill Kill by Russ Meyers -- lots of voluptuous women, random violence and frightened men -- and it features Spanish actress Rossy de Palma. Oh, and Yotuel takes his shirt off. Check it!

"Almost an American Story": Sterns Music Through the Eyes of Producer Iain Scott

by Sarah Bardeen

Every style of music has its seminal labels: soul had Stax, jazz had Capitol, the blues had Chess. In the U.K., African music had Sterns Music. When Sterns went live on Rhapsody early in 2008, we decided to talk to world music producer -- and longtime Sterns consultant and friend -- Iain Scott to get a better handle on just why Sterns has been so significant to world music. We got that. .. and a lot more: ruminations on African independence, struggles within world music and stories about sassy African pop stars taking on bootleggers single-handedly. Fasten your seatbelt!

Exclusive: "Fabuloso" Señor Flavio Q&A

by Sarah Bardeen

Señor Flavio, aka Flavio Cianciarulo, is a founding member of Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, one of the greatest rock bands on any continent, from any era. (Not that we're biased.) With Los Cadis on long hiatus, the good Señor has taken to releasing solo albums under the name the Flavio Mandinga Project, and his latest, Supersaund 2012, is a blast from the same ska-reggae-rock furnace that made the Cadillacs so great. The veteran rocker took some time to answer a few questions about himself, his favorite songs and what the heck "mandinga" means.